I often use the word people to mean multiple persons. However, I’ve noticed that sometimes people will laugh/smirk when I use it. For example, one time I was talking about how my sister and her family/household travel often, saying, “Those people travel a lot,” and the person repeated those people and gave a slight laugh. I’m wondering if I may be giving some sort of unintentional implied message when I use that word.
Does the word people mean anything other than multiple persons, such as a group of persons united by a common identity (family, experience, nationality, ethnicity, etc.)?
“People” is a generic term for more than one person.
“Persons” denotes a singular distinct grouping of people. Ie, Native American persons.
Not part of the question, but “peoples” is used for a plurality of distinct persons. Ie, “this had great impact on the various peoples of North America” would be a sentence to lead into a discussion on how an event had varying impacts on each unique cultural group in North America. This is largely only used in academics, specifically anthropology and sometimes sociology, but understand this use helps clear up the reason for the distinction between “people” and “persons”.
Are you sure about that? Cause it sounds like you’ve never spoken to a native English speaker about the terms here.
A group of persons with a commonality are a people. The individuals are persons within a group. You can say “a group of people”, but that’s different (like a sheep vs. a flock of sheep and also a distraction here). The group is a people. People is not a generic term for multiple persons, it’s implicitly a group with some commonality. Nobody says “the American persons”, it’s “the American people”. The “various peoples of North America” would refer to a plurality of various and distinct groups of persons.
I am literally an English teacher, and have spent years editing university papers for English as an additional language learners. Yes, I am sure.
Sure you are. God I hope you’re lying because your flippant arrogance is a toxic quality for a teacher to demonstrate like this. This person wasn’t asking for an anthropologist’s academic use of people vs. persons.
peoples /pē′pəl/
Plural form of people
noun Humans considered as a group or in indefinite numbers. Often treated as a plural of person, especially in compounds. “People were dancing in the street. I met all sorts of people. This book is not intended for laypeople.” The mass of ordinary persons; the populace. Used with the. **A body of persons **living in the same country under one national government; a nationality. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik
peoples plural of people (“a race, group or nationality”) The course studies the history of Africa and the peoples who lived there.
I’m not sure if you found my original statements challenging to follow, but nothing you’ve said contradicts what I’ve said. Parts of the definitions I’ve provided are strewn in the definitions you’ve provided, and differing definitions of specific word case isn’t unusual, even within similiar cultures. Language is fluid, and the same words can mean a lot of different things.
There is often a gap between common-use language, and the academic function of words (see “racism”). This is why I emphasized the relation of the definitions I provided to the fields of anthropology and sociology, as well as why I stated it is a use almost exclusively found, in my experiences, in academia.
I don’t appreciate the strange, ignorant, tongue-in-cheek jabs at my background. If you think I have something wrong I welcome you to say so, but the strange sense of superiority you’ve attached to your comments is unnessecarily insulting.